


Midnight Masque

by callowyn



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Anonymous Sex, Failboats In Love, M/M, Masks, Miscommunication, hanky code
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-02-27
Updated: 2010-02-27
Packaged: 2017-10-12 20:36:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,364
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/128781
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/callowyn/pseuds/callowyn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Arthur wears a mask and discovers the value of reading the fine print.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Midnight Masque

**Author's Note:**

> for the [](http://community.livejournal.com/kinkelot/profile)[ **kinkelot**](http://community.livejournal.com/kinkelot/) anonymity challenge. The colors of the masks follow a slightly-altered version of [the hanky code](http://alt.xmission.com/~trevin/hanky.html).

The premise of Midnight Masque was simple, Gary explained. Everyone took a mask at the door and didn’t take it off until they were safe in one of the fourteen private bedrooms upstairs, if then. Instead of the awkward chatting-up one had to do at normal clubs, the color and patterns of the mask you chose told everyone exactly what you were looking for. Oh, and no girls allowed.

“But you don’t have to worry about wanting something odd or nasty, because no one can see your face, see?” said Gary, who had taken full advantage of the Sophia debacle to finally goad Arthur into going clubbing with the rest of the lads. Arthur would rather be drinking himself into a stupor somewhere quiet, truth be told, but Kay had dropped pointed remarks about being too vanilla, and Percy had suggested that what he really needed was something that wouldn’t remind him of Sophia, something with no pressure. Besides, Arthur hadn’t gotten laid in nearly a month.

Seeing the long color-coded rows of masks on the wall in front of him was beginning to change his mind. “What do they mean, then?” asked Arthur, not adding that he personally couldn’t choose anything without the entire rest of the group knowing about it.

“The black ones are for S&M,” said Gary, pointing. “A circle around the left eye means you’re a dom, right eye is sub. The left/right thing goes all of them, actually, so you need to make sure your partner's is opposite. Dark pink ones are for spanking and being spanked, beige is rimming, red is for blood play...” Gary caught sight of Arthur’s face and stopped walking. “You know, maybe we’d better just get you a white one.”

“What’s white?” said Arthur, thinking that kinks were all well and good until putting on the wrong mask meant someone was going to _cut you during sex._

“Good old-fashioned buttfucking. With a condom, of course.” Gary smiled and took down two white masks, one with a black circle around its left eye, one around its right. “Top or bottom?”

“What do _you_ think?” Arthur snapped, grabbing the mask and looping the elastic around the back of his head before he could change his mind. The thin stiff plastic left the lower half of his face free, but it was heavier than he expected and smelled slightly of Lysol, which he supposed was preferable to the smell of whatever the Lysol had been cleaning off.

Gary looked slightly surprised, but he shrugged. “Suit yourself.”

“If I get herpes in my eyes I will eviscerate you,” Arthur called after him, but Gary had wandered into a different section to select his own mask and pretended not to hear him.

Arthur went to stand in front of the door to the main room. He didn’t need to watch himself here, he realized. Nobody would know he was Uther Pendragon’s son, and they would probably be too drunk to remember if he accidentally gave himself away. This would be a night of no consequences. He straightened his tie and walked through the door.

It was just like any other gay bar, really, once you got past the fact that everyone’s face was obscured by a colorful mask that could easily mean they enjoyed pretending to be a horse. Arthur slid into a seat at the end of the bar, watching the way some people would lock eyes and follow each other up the stairs with no more than a nod exchanged. He even saw one person going back into the mask room and returning with some other color, completely ignoring their previous partner. Arthur felt slightly dizzy.

“What can I get you, blondie?” asked the bartender. The tall, redheaded man seemed to be the only one not wearing a mask, so Arthur could see it when his brusque indifference faded to a sympathetic smirk. “This your first time?”

“Yeah,” Arthur replied eventually, not sure of the etiquette. “My mates think they’re doing me a favor.”

“Best not prove them wrong, then,” said the bartender. “If it’s liquid courage you’re wanting, I find tequila to be especially helpful.”

A few shots later, Arthur was still avoiding eye contact with anyone else in a white mask, though he was pretty sure Kay had been in and out of the bedrooms at least twice while he’d been sitting there drinking.

“I think you’re missing the point of this club, love,” said the bartender when Arthur downed his fourth shot. His head was starting to buzz pleasantly.

“It’s a bar,” he said. “M getting drunk.”

The bartender sighed. “Look, whatever your ex did to you, you don’t have to worry about that kind of thing here, alright. We– wotsit– ‘want to make it as easy as possible to enjoy yourself in a casual atmosphere without the stress of a relationship or fear of rejection.’ ” He picked up a towel and started wiping down the counter. “Feel free to tell my boss I said that, by the by. You haven’t hardly looked at anyone since you got here, and there’s plenty been looking at you.”

“What do you mean?” said Arthur, and the bartender nodded toward one of the tables near the door.

“See that man in the blue shirt, white mask? He’s been watching you for a while now.”

Arthur turned. The man in question fell somewhere between thin and gawky, his black skinny jeans only just hanging on his hips, though his royal blue t-shirt was tight enough to imply some muscle under the pale skin. His mask was slightly crooked, and Arthur wasn’t surprised to see that the circle was around the left eye– this man was clearly too scrawny to top. His dark hair showcased a pair of truly ridiculous ears, but Arthur’s gaze kept being drawn back to the man’s slender neck and very pretty mouth.

The man met his eyes just as Arthur was absently licking his lips. He gave Arthur an obvious, lingering once-over, then grinned. Arthur’s heart lurched.

“What do I do?” he whispered to the bartender in a panic.

“Just nod toward the stairs; he’ll understand.”

The dark-haired man was a step ahead of him, however; he looked up at Arthur through thick eyelashes and tipped his head in the direction of the stairs. Arthur scrambled off of his seat. The man winked and sauntered away.

They reached the stair at the same time. After a few false starts, Arthur let the other man go first, which earned him another grin– this one a little more crinkly, a little more genuine, revealing a dimple in one cheek– and allowed him to observe the man more closely. Despite the unfortunate prominence of his joints, he moved with a blithe sort of grace, and Arthur found himself entranced by the sway of his hips, the occasional flash of pale skin between his jeans and the blue of his shirt. He barely registered the simple decorations in the hallway, and nearly walked into the man when he stopped and poked his head around a door.

“This one’s free,” he said in a light tenor, and stood aside to let Arthur into the bedroom.

Somebody had been in here with Lysol, too, no doubt to disinfect the supersize bottle of lube and three boxes of condoms that sat on a table beside the king-size bed. The walls were a comforting brown, and a few nondescript pictures hung on the walls, but the warm dim light couldn’t hide the clinical linoleum floor or make the white bedding any less impersonal.

When Arthur turned around, he found the dark-haired man standing more than close enough to touch and staring at Arthur like he was something delectable. His eyes were dark behind the white of the mask– and blue, Arthur noted giddily. A rush of blood stirred his cock.

“I’d really like to kiss you,” the man said, a rough edge in his voice. “Is that okay?” His gaze fixed on Arthur’s mouth in what was possibly the most obscene thing Arthur had ever seen, and he was glad the mask hid the way his face heated up at the sight.

“Yeah,” he breathed, and he’d barely finished before their mouths met.

Instantly Arthur forgave Gary for dragging him here, and Sophia for dumping him; he would in fact have done a lot of things for a lot of people if it meant that this stranger would keep flicking his tongue like that. Arthur ran his teeth along the man’s bottom lip and tugged, which elicited a soft moan from his companion. Hands came up to tug at Arthur’s tie.

“Why are you wearing so many _clothes_?” the man complained when they broke apart for air and he still hadn’t managed to get the tie off.

“I’ll get it,” said Arthur, because this man had obviously never seen a Windsor knot if he thought that was how to undo one. Arthur twisted at the constricting silk, almost fumbling in his haste, while the other man pushed the suit jacket off his shoulders. Their panting breaths mingled in the narrow space between their masks, and when both jacket and tie were disposed of, they moved back in for another filthy kiss.

Arthur’s hands first slid under the man’s shirt entirely by accident, but then he couldn’t stop _touching_ , dragging his thumbs in circles over jutting hip bones and marveling at the way the skin shifted hot under his palms. He ran his fingers up, pulling the clingy fabric of the shirt further and further up the other man’s ribs. His own shirt was being unbuttoned with far more dexterity than his tie had been. Arthur licked the underside of the tongue in his mouth and the other man’s hips jerked forward, reminding Arthur that yes, he really was that hard already, and maybe the man had a point about too many clothes.

The white button-down Arthur was wearing was easily shrugged off without interrupting the proceedings, but they had to break apart while the man pulled his blue t-shirt off. It got caught on the underside of his mask, and for a second the mask lifted– Arthur was seized with a reckless curiosity– before it snapped back against the man’s face.

He blinked. “Ow."

Something about the look of surprised indignation struck Arthur as unbearably funny, and he laughed aloud, throwing his head back and feeling lighter than he had in months.

“Yeah, yeah, let’s all laugh at M– me,” the man said, and effectively cut off Arthur’s laughter by pressing open lips against his exposed throat.

“Ngh,” Arthur said as a hot tongue trailed over his Adam’s apple. The other man’s fingers tugged in the hair at the back of Arthur’s neck, just under the elastic band of his mask. Arthur tipped his head back, giving him better access to worry the skin between his teeth and soothe it with quick laps of his tongue.

Arthur recovered quickly, running one hand down the man’s pale chest and rolling the hard nipple between his fingers. With his other hand he drew the man closer, bracing against his hip and groaning as their erections brushed together. The man gasped against Arthur’s neck, outlining every sensitive patch of wet skin with a gust of warm air.

“Bed,” said Arthur, and took a few wobbly steps backward. The man nodded and promptly shimmied out of his jeans without the slightest flush of embarrassment, revealing that he’d been wearing absolutely nothing underneath. Arthur stared.

He’d seen other men naked before, obviously, but that usually only in flashes, both in a rush to finish or not get caught. This was something different entirely– the inviting expanse of skin that nearly glowed in the dim light, the white mask covering his face that only underlined how very bare the rest of him was. Arthur’s usual type was nothing like this slender, otherworldly figure. There was something about him...

Arthur fumbled with his own belt and pulled off his own trousers in one go. He was well aware of how good he looked after all those years of football, and he didn’t need any stranger’s approval, but it was still gratifying to see the man rake his eyes over Arthur’s body and smile, unadulterated lust with just a hint of honest wonder.

“Much better,” the man said, and with an uncoordinated shove, tipped both of them onto the mattress.

It didn’t come to Arthur’s attention for some time that he had ended up with his back on the bedsheets, distracted as he was by the hands dancing up and down his ribcage and flirting with the insides of his thighs. But lying back like a selfish bastard wasn’t his style and Uther never raised Arthur to be hesitant, so with a sharp twist– one that met a surprising amount of resistance– he flipped them over and began his own ministrations.

“What are you _doing_?” asked the man, sounding awfully irritated for someone with a hand around their cock. Arthur stopped nosing his collarbones long enough to raise an incredulous eyebrow.

“I think it’s pretty clear what I’m doing,” he said, because it just figured the man would reveal himself to be an idiot _after_ Arthur had discovered that licking his ears made him shiver so agreeably.

“Yes, but why did you flip us,” he said, and he actually wriggled out of Arthur’s hold to a sitting position.

“Because that’s usually how it goes?” Arthur said, though come to think on it, the man’s kisses had been much more aggressive than Arthur had been expecting. He drew back a little. “Are you one of those toppy bottoms?”

“Um, pot, kettle, black? And I’m not any sort of bottom.” The man started to laugh before seeing the horror that was no doubt plain on Arthur’s face, even under the mask.

“What do you _mean_ you’re not bottoming?” Arthur’s voice cracked. “What about your mask?”

The man touched his face in confusion. “What about it? I’ve got left circle, you’ve got right.”

“Yes, and right is dominant,” Arthur said.

“Not here,” said the man. “Left is on top, everybody knows that.”

“But– people are right-handed!” Arthur said. He took a few calming breaths and tried again. “Look, I don’t know what you signed up for, but I’m here to bugger someone senseless.”

The man’s mouth tugged sideways. “Well, shit.”

Arthur wholeheartedly agreed. The recent discussion hadn’t done much to discourage his cock, and now that he knew it might be denied him, he _wanted_ the man in front of him with a visceral intensity– one that went far beyond any sense of entitlement, just as it was more than wanting his dick up someone’s arse; Arthur wanted _him_ , this man with the bony hips and stupid ears and eyes the kind of blue you couldn’t stop looking at. His fingers twitched in frustration.

“I’ve got an idea,” the man said presently. “You let me top–“ he leaned in, words hot against Arthur’s ear– “and I’ll suck you off after.” Arthur’s cock gave an interested jump against the man’s thigh.

“No deal,” Arthur growled, mostly to wipe that smug look off his face. “I should top, I’m bigger than you. And older, I’ll bet.”

The man sat back on his heels with a huff. “Has anyone ever told you you’re a prat?”

You wouldn’t say that if you knew who I was, Arthur started to say, but of course that was what the mask was for, and Arthur got the funny feeling that the man might still call him a prat, no matter whose son he was. It was strangely refreshing.

Not that insults got them anywhere. “I don’t hear you coming up with suggestions.”

"I just did!" the man said. “And _I_ think we should go by the masks, since that’s the whole point of this place. It’s not my fault you didn’t pay attention to what you put on your face.”

“Yeah, but I thought _I_ was gonna...” Arthur stopped and rubbed his forehead. The man’s lower lip was jutting out and making Arthur want to taste it again, which wasn’t helping. “Look, how about a coin toss? That’s fair, isn’t it?” He shuffled off the bed and rummaged through his wallet, pulling out a penny and holding it on the top of his hand. “Call it.”

“Heads,” the man said as the coin flipped through the air. Arthur caught it and looked at the queen’s face in dismay.

“Best two out of three,” Arthur said, but the man just laughed.

“Not a chance. I win.”

Arthur turned the traitorous penny between his fingers, sulking– regretting the cruel and arbitrary nature of probability, he corrected himself. The man began to look slightly worried.

“You have done this before, right?”

Arthur opened his mouth to give the usual excuses– Lancelot was very good at manipulating Arthur’s sense of honor, and anyway he’d run off with Guinevere and shouldn’t really count– then reconsidered. He didn’t want to come off as some sort of blushing virgin. “Once or twice.”

“The coin toss was your idea,” the man reminded him, but he didn’t move to pull Arthur closer, waiting for some signal of consent.

But I was supposed to win, Arthur thought, petulant and unreasonably disappointed. I want to see you under me, twisting in the bedsheets and begging for it while I tease that pretty arse of yours, I want to make you come apart...

“ _Fine_.” Arthur dropped back onto the bed and scooted against the pillows, scowling, spreading his legs open like a dare. The man laughed.

“If that’s how you throw a tantrum, perhaps you should have more of them,” he said, crawling over Arthur with a positively wicked look in his blue eyes.

“Now who’s the prat?” Arthur griped, but the man swooped in for another long, languorous kiss and made it quite difficult to complain.

“Don’t worry, I’ll make it up to you,” he said, voice low and raspy around the edges. He wrapped his fingers around Arthur’s cock, and Arthur let himself arch into it; there was pride and then there was just being stupid. The man gave Arthur a few long, slow strokes.

“Fucking _hurry up_ ,” Arthur said, or tried to, because it was at that moment the man twisted his wrist _just so_ and the words became a choked gasp. Arthur slid one of his own hands down the man’s ribs, aiming for the slick cock brushing his stomach, but the man batted him away.

“You don’t know how beautiful you look like this,” he said by way of explanation, and captured Arthur’s mouth in a surprisingly tender kiss before Arthur could demand that he take that back. He thrust his tongue in time with the strokes on Arthur’s dick, moaning into his mouth, until Arthur was dizzy from lack of air. One long finger pressed into him– and, okay, he’d forgotten what that was like.

“All right?” the man asked, and of all the stupid things, he reached up and brushed back Arthur’s hair off his mask.

“It’s been a while,” Arthur muttered, willing himself to relax. It was embarrassing enough to tense up like a fucking teenager on his first time without having this man treating him like he was– like he was _fragile_ , or something. He squeezed his eyes shut and breathed.

The pressure disappeared, and there was a soft click before it was back, the man’s finger now slick and slightly cool with lube. “Better?” he asked, and Arthur nodded. The man started thrusting his hand, slow at first but speeding up as Arthur adjusted to the not-entirely-unfamiliar sensation. The man pushed in another finger and began to scissor him open, and soon Arthur was rocking along with him, their dicks sliding together between them in the loose circle of Arthur’s hand.

The man crooked his fingers, and “Oh fuck,” said Arthur. Sweat began to form at his temples, sliding inside the plastic of the mask into his hair. The man touched that spot deep inside him again, and again, and Arthur pushed down, mindless, digging his nails into the man’s shoulder to make him go faster, harder, come _on_...

The man withdrew his fingers just as Arthur was about to scream in frustration. He placed a sloppy kiss on Arthur’s jaw and stretched, long and lean and pale in front of Arthur’s face, reaching for something on the table. Arthur made a vague noise of complaint and pinched him. The man gave a breathless laugh.

“Impatient bastard.”

Arthur leaned up on his elbows, watching as the man struggled to open the condom wrapper. It was astonishing, how the same fingers that had so effortlessly made Arthur gasp with pleasure could be so stunningly incompetent with simple tasks. Arthur rolled his eyes. “Here, let me do it.”

The man tossed it at him with a sheepish smile. The foil was slippery in one corner from the lube on the man’s fingers, but Arthur managed to tear it open anyway and rescue the condom. He met the man’s eyes, the pupils huge in the shadow of his mask, and watched them flutter shut as he slowly rolled the condom over the other man’s stiff and leaking cock. Arthur could see his muscles tense as he tried not to shove into Arthur’s hand. Arthur smirked and got the lube, slicking him up and down, fingers teasingly light.

The man surged forward and pinned Arthur back against the mattress, licking hungrily into his mouth. He seemed almost to have forgotten Arthur’s arse, so intent he was on drawing muffled moans from his mouth and swallowing them. Arthur lifted his hips and slotted their erections together to remind him. When he pulled back, Arthur made sure to give him a look saying _get on with it_ before moving to turn over. A hand on his shoulder stopped him.

“Ehm, can we do it this way?” the man asked, with an ambiguous gesture at Arthur’s chest. Arthur noted with interest that the tips of his ears seemed to have gone red. Arthur curled a hand around the back of his neck and hauled him forward until the foreheads of their masks clacked together.

“Only if you actually _do it_ ,” he said roughly.

The man nodded and finally, finally, pushed himself in. The blunt head stretched Arthur open in ways fingers didn’t, but he welcomed the twinge of discomfort that kept him grounded. The man moved out, then in again, slowly, his hands pressing Arthur’s hips down so he couldn’t speed up the rhythm. “Faster,” Arthur demanded, but the man ignored him, biting his lower lip in concentration. He was hitting the prostate with every sinuous roll of his hips now, making Arthur’s back arch and his hands clench around the man’s shoulders, but it wasn’t enough, not quite; he brought Arthur just to the edge and then pulled back. Arthur squirmed and twisted to no avail, aching, until finally he let out a broken groan.

“ _Please_.”

At that, the man’s careful control broke. He shuddered all over and began to thrust quick and rough, harder than anything he’d done so far and fast enough that each frisson of pleasure down Arthur’s spine didn’t have time to fade before the next one was upon him. Arthur could feel the pressure building in his chest and at the base of his cock as they came together, every thrust driving the man further inside him, again and again and again until Arthur cried aloud and came in a burst of ecstasy. Above him, he could feel the man tremble and let go, filling him up and then collapsing onto the bed beside him.

Arthur drifted in a post-coital stupor, aware of something soft brushing his cheek but not much else as his eyes fell shut. He wasn’t sure how long he lay there, body loosely sprawled across the warm bed, before his blissful daze was interrupted by a sharp knock.

“Wh?” He lifted his head. The man was gone, with no evidence he had ever been there except the way Arthur’s legs didn’t want to work and the vague ache burrowed somewhere in his ribcage. As Arthur tried to pull his head back to reality, someone pushed the door open.

“If you’re done, you’d best let us clean up so somebody else can use the place,” said a broad-set man in overalls, exaggeratedly not looking at Arthur, who was still naked on the white sheets. Arthur jumped up and scrabbled his clothes on, blushing under the sweat-sticky mask, wishing he’d thought to cut and run as was clearly the expectation here. He strode past the janitor and down the stairs, intensely aware that his trousers were rumpled and his shirt untucked. Someone who was probably Gary gave him a thumbs up as he hurried back to the room with the masks.

It was no good wondering who the dark-haired man was, he told himself, dropping the mask in the “used” bin and wiping his face on his sleeve. Stupid masks. If Gary hadn’t given him the wrong one, the man would never have even noticed him, and Arthur wouldn’t have the curiosity itching at the back of his skull– rather, he wouldn’t have had the, the _indignity_ of bottoming to someone that he could probably take apart with one blow. Arthur stepped outside and hailed a taxi. If it weren’t for the damn masks, he would have gotten what he’d actually come here for, which was– forgetting Sophia. Yes. It was odd, how he hadn’t thought of her this whole time. He shivered at a breeze in the night air and scowled. His face felt strangely exposed without plastic covering it.

A twinge shot through his backside when he dropped onto the seat of the taxi, which only made him angrier. Damn that man, whoever he was, and damn the entire code of masks that were not explicitly labeled. Arthur decided that he didn't care if Kay called him a prude; he was never going back _there_ again.

He twirled a penny between his fingers the whole way home.

 


End file.
